Catalyst with Shayle Kann

Distributed batteries are having a big moment. On one hand, companies like Base Power and Tesla have leaned into large residential batteries that export power back to the grid, but need permits and inspections to operate. At the same time, however, a new category has emerged: small, "plug-in" batteries that don’t require an electrician or complex installation, let alone a permit. 

In this episode, Shayle talks to James McGinniss, co-founder and CEO of David Energy (yes, the biblical reference is intentional). David Energy is deploying these nimble, permissionless systems today for both residential customers and small businesses, and James argues that this approach could usher in a new era of massive scale and affordability for distributed energy resources.

Shayle and James cover topics like:


Why James prefers the term "plug-in" over "permissionless," and what falls into this bucket, from balcony solar to battery-enabled appliances


The murky regulatory landscape around micro-DERs


How plug-in systems can effectively drive soft costs (permitting, labor, customer acquisition) down to nearly zero


How high energy prices in Germany drove the adoption of 4 million plug-in systems in just a few years


The appeal for small businesses: how shaving just a few kilowatts of peak demand can generate significant savings for commercial customers in markets like New York


Future form factors, including batteries integrated directly into cooktops, heat pumps, and other household appliances 

Resources


Catalyst: How Base Power plans to use its fresh $1B


Catalyst: The new wave of DERs


Catalyst: Is now the time for DERs to scale?


Latitude Media: Can VPPs unlock grid capacity for data centers? 


Latitude Media: How do we turn small-scale, distributed energy into a multi-trillion dollar sector?

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

We are back for Part 2 of Shayle’s double header conversation with the veteran energy analyst Nat Bullard, dissecting his annual presentation on the state of decarbonization.

If you missed it, we recommend you go back and listen to Part 1, which was released last week.

In this episode, Shayle and Nat shift their focus from data centers to exploring other intriguing trends found in the data that Nat assembled—from the surprising resilience of clean energy stocks to the rising costs of solar installations in the US.

Shayle and Nat dig into more topics including:


Why the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index outperformed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq last year


The steep drop in U.S. energy startup investment—from $8 billion in 2022 to just over $2 billion in 2025—and why Shayle thinks 2026 will see a massive rebound


The impacts of an enormous oversupply of oil


China’s skyrocketing share of global vehicle production


The remarkable pace of residential battery storage adoption in Australia

Resources


Nat Bullard’s full 2026 presentation


Catalyst: 2026 trends: Gas turbines, Texas’ load queue, and China electrifies


Catalyst: 2025 trends: aerosols, oil demand, and carbon removal


Catalyst: More 2025 trends: DeepSeek, plug-in hybrids, and curtailment


Latitude: The year resiliency investment began to go mainstream  Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

In 2024, Tom Burton described the clean energy transition as entering its “third inning” — a phase defined by execution and scale. A year later, the game looks very different.

In this episode, produced in partnership with Mintz, Stephen Lacey sits down with Burton to revisit that framework and assess the state of play for U.S. energy infrastructure heading into 2026. 

Burton, who chairs Mintz’s sustainable energy and infrastructure practice, brings nearly 3 decades of experience advising developers, investors, and operators across clean energy and digital infrastructure.

They begin with the immediate market picture: a surge of renewable projects racing to put steel in the ground under existing tax rules, followed by a thinning pipeline. Burton explains why 2027 and 2028 could mark a slowdown in new deployments, even as demand continues to rise.

From there, the conversation turns to politics. Federal hostility toward clean energy, shifting tax credit structures, foreign sourcing rules, and the weaponization of permitting have introduced new layers of risk. Deals are harder to close, financing is more complex, and even strong projects are feeling the strain.

Burton unpacks what this environment means for developers, including who’s most exposed to the current shakeout, what separates resilient companies from struggling ones, and why permitting uncertainty may now be a bigger threat than tax policy itself.

The episode also explores one of the defining forces reshaping the energy sector: the rapid expansion of digital infrastructure. Burton explains how power availability, interconnection, and long-term grid planning are now central to dealmaking.

The energy transition hasn’t stopped, says Burton. But it has entered a rain delay — and the companies that adapt during the pause will be the ones still standing when play resumes.

These conversations were recorded at the Mintz Energy Transition Summit. Mintz has been at the frontlines of the energy and sustainability revolution since the start. For finance, policy, and market insights from the Mintz team, sign up for their newsletter.

It’s a new year, which means the veteran energy analyst Nat Bullard has dropped another annual, data-rich presentation on the state of energy and decarbonization.

And per what has become tradition, Nat is back on Catalyst – for the fourth time – to discuss some of Shayle’s favorite slides, cherry-picked from the 200-page deck. 

In part one of their two-part conversation, they cover topics like:


The significance of China’s rapid electrification


Why the proportion of GDP spent on electricity has remained flat while oil has proven volatile


The massive backlog and rising capital costs for gas turbines


How current tech CapEx compares to past large-scale endeavors like the Manhattan Project and broadband build-out


The extraordinary explosion of large load interconnection requests in Texas


The divergence in load forecasting between grid operators and transmission providers


Global drivers of electricity demand growth beyond data centers

Resources


Nat Bullard's 2026 presentation deck


Catalyst: 2025 trends: aerosols, oil demand, and carbon removal


Catalyst: 2024 trends: batteries, transferable tax credits, and the cost of capital

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor.

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

For “deep tech” or industrial tech investors, a captivating idea on paper doesn’t always translate into a sustainable or viable business. Even a remarkable technological breakthrough isn’t guaranteed to survive the long sales cycles of the industrial world.

So which companies are worth the investment?

Ian Rountree, founder and partner at the venture firm Cantos, wrote a bare-bones thesis on X that offers guidance on this question. In it, Rountree lays out a stark list of the companies he invests in—and the ones he passes on.

In this episode, Shayle and Ian unpack his post and explore how it applies to the current landscape of hardware and industrial startups. They cover topics like:


Why selling technology to large incumbents like automakers or utilities can be a death sentence for startups


The pitfalls of "commercializing science" 


Why capital risk to sell an end-product can be better business than licensing technology


Why "weird" companies—"N of 1" startups—can generate huge amounts of talent and capital


Why selling commodities (like electrons or minerals) can actually be a safer bet than entering a new market


Real-world examples of full-stack success in the mining industry, including Earth AI and KoBold Metals

Latitude: Earth AI’s play in the hunt for critical minerals

Catalyst: Calibrating hype with Akshat Rathi

Catalyst: Climate tech startups need strong techno-economic analysis

Open Circuit: Pain, resilience, and bargain hunting for climate tech investors

Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Uplight. Uplight activates energy customers and their connected devices to generate, shift, and save energy—improving grid resilience and energy affordability while accelerating decarbonization. Learn how Uplight is helping utilities unlock flexible load at scale at uplight.com. 

Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the public relations and strategic marketing agency of choice for climate, energy, and infrastructure leaders. If you're a startup, investor, or global corporation that's looking to tell your climate story, demonstrate your impact, or accelerate your growth, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help. Learn more at antennagroup.com.